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No kids, no jobs for growing number of wives
Author: Stay-at-home wives constitute a growing niche

Some couples say the arrangement makes life less stressful for both parties

The biggest draw is focusing on making home a better place, expert says

By Sarah Jio

(LifeWire) -- "What do you do all day?" is a question Anne Marie Davis, 34, says she gets a lot.

Stay-at-home wives represent a growing niche, according to the author of "The Secrets of Happily Married Women."

Davis, who lives in Louisville, Texas, isn't a mother, nor does she telecommute. She is a stay-at-home wife, which makes her something of a pioneer in the post-feminist world.

Ten years ago, she was an "overwhelmed" high school English teacher. "I didn't have time for my husband, " she says, "and I didn't have a life."

She presented the idea of staying home to her husband, a Web engineer. "I told him it was something I wanted to do, and he supported it. It was a great relief."

Dr. Scott Haltzman, author of "The Secrets of Happily Married Women," says stay-at-home wives constitute a growing niche. "In the past few years, many women who are well educated and trained for career tracks have decided instead to stay at home," he says. While his research is ongoing, he estimates that more than 10 percent of the 650 women he's interviewed who choose to stay home are childless.

Daniel Buccino, a Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine clinical social worker and psychotherapist, says stay-at-home wives are the latest "status symbols."

"It says, 'We make enough money that we both don't need to work outside the home,'" he says. "And especially with the recent economic pressures, a stay-at-home spouse is often an extreme and visible luxury."

June Cleaver, minus Beaver and Wally

Davis says her life isn't luxurious. "Tuesdays are my laundry day," she says. "I go grocery shopping on Wednesdays and clean house on Thursdays." Mondays and Fridays are reserved for appointments and other errands.

But her schedule also allows for charity work and leisure: reading, creative writing and exploring new hobbies, like sewing.

It's a lifestyle, Davis says, that has made her happier and brought her closer to her husband. "We're no longer stressed out," she says; because she takes care of the home, there are virtually no "honey-do" lists to hand over.

Stay-at-home guilt

"If you told me years ago that I was going to be a stay-at-home wife, I would have laughed at you," says Catherine Zoerb, 27. Yet after the Wichita, Kansas, resident finished graduate school in 2005, she found herself unemployed, childless -- and strangely happy. With her husband's support, Zoerb decided to just stay home.

"I was able to clip coupons, do all the chores and make nice dinners," she says. "I was much less stressed and tense."

But she was concerned, too -- about not using her master's degree in English and how future employers would view her work history. "I worried about gaps in my resume," she says. And there was something else: "I thought about the feminist movement -- all those women who worked so hard so that I could go out and have a good career, and I was kind of saying 'no thanks.'"

Recently, Zoerb took a temporary job at an engineering firm. It will boost her resume, and although the Zoerbs don't need the money, it will help pay down their mortgage. Still, she hopes to return to stay-at-home wifedom soon.

"I'd never say that a woman shouldn't work," she says. "But I don't see what good it would do to work in a job that I couldn't stand, and if I have the choice not to, why wouldn't I take that opportunity?"

Retro marriage, 21st century-style

"Everyone seems to be OK with women staying home when they have kids," says Davis, who currently doesn't plan to have children. "I've actually heard people say that women who don't work are a drain on society."

Don't be too quick to judge, says Haltzman. Women might give up a job to focus on an advanced degree, pursue artistic or creative goals, or deal with health issues.

Surprisingly, though, Haltzman says the biggest draw is homemaking itself. "Many women I talk to take care of the household seriously, and they want to focus on caring for the home, whether or not it involves children."

Sometimes a wife's desires don't align with her husband's. "I hear frustration from men whose wives choose not to work," Haltzman says, "but only if there are financial stresses. One of the realities is that few men appreciate the scope and difficulties of managing a household."

Common sense rears its ugly head again. Not everybody defines themselves by their resume and their ability to juggle (often badly) the stresses of working, marriage, caring for parents, or caring for a home. Incredibly, some of us actually enjoy having time for volunteer work, family, and hobbies. I cannot wait to become a stay at home wife myself. :)

If you think about it, when you have a marriage where both spouses are working it leaves little time for each other, kids, hobbies, and a social life. Thus, but not always, creating tensions that can lead to divorce.

Now leave the wife or husband at home and we have created more time and less stress. Creating for happier marriages.

I understand that there are several other factors when considering divorce, but if you can start to weed out some of them, marriages can go on to be happy and healthy.

Again, the theory of ‘Multi-Tasking’ proves itself to be utter bullshit.

At Coretta Scott King's funeral in early 2006, Ethel Kennedy, the widow of Robert Kennedy, leaned over to him and whispered, "The torch is being passed to you." "A chill went up my spine," Obama told an aide. (Newsweek)

If you think about it, when you have a marriage where both spouses are working it leaves little time for each other, kids, hobbies, and a social life.

But this article is specifically talking about couples without kids. Much as I admire the idea of letting someone else do all the work, it's hard for me to imagine staying home when there isn't the job of child-raising to do.

It's probably hard for me to imagine because I make nearly what my husband does. The norm is still for the wife to bring in a "supplemental" income, but we would notice if our family income suddenly went down by 45%.

Again, the theory of ‘Multi-Tasking’ proves itself to be utter bullshit.

True dat. I don't how many times I've been told about the superior "multitasking skills" of women. Yet when I look at them, I see a harried, bitchy gal who is doing 3 mediocre jobs and one truly awful job.

Maintaining a home is a valid career choice with or without children. A home is a refuge and place to heal up from the various assaults of life - it should be inviting and peaceful.

Before the second wave feminists showed their true colors by selling out to gay men, they pretended that women could have this choice. They pretended to respect homemaking and marriage and they pretended to respect women who did stay at home.

That lasted about 5 minutes.

Current feminist theory holds that women should be exactly like stereotypical men in all ways which literally means having no interests outside of work and sex. If your entire world is work and sex, homemaking probably does seem insane.

Maintaining a home is a valid career choice with or without children. A home is a refuge and place to heal up from the various assaults of life - it should be inviting and peaceful.

I definitely agree with the second sentence. The first sentence is harder for me to process. I live in a well-run home (thanks to both of us) and if I didn't work I can't imagine what I would do with myself. I'm on my second sick day today, and I can't wait to get back to the office! I do very "homey" things - knitting, cooking, things like that, but home would be far less of a refuge without two incomes.

But this article is specifically talking about couples without kids. Much as I admire the idea of letting someone else do all the work, it's hard for me to imagine staying home when there isn't the job of child-raising to do.